A central motivation for founding towns was to make money. Urban land was more valuable than rural land, especially if a town grew into a city. Early sales of town land usually attracted speculators hoping to profit from a rising market. But it did not always pay. In 1879 the entrepreneur John Martin laid out a town in southern Wairarapa – Martinborough. Early sales were sluggish and the settlement never progressed past a market town. This is an 1879 land-sale plan of the town. Many of the streets were named after places or people Martin had visited on a world tour four years earlier.
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Wairarapa Archive
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00-75/9.MD1092
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